In the dairy industry, it is important to maintain a clean, sanitized environment to prevent contamination and spoilage of the dairy products. Because the milk is drawn from a living animal, the potential exists for contamination of the milk via the donor animal itself. The tests of milk producing animals are quite susceptible to various pathogenic bacterial organisms which may thrive on the teat exterior or may gain entrance into the teat canal.
Great capital expenditures are made to ensure that the processing, packaging and distribution of dairy products is done in a clean and sanitary manner. It is prudent, therefore, to ensure that the first step of drawing the milk from the animal is also done under clean and sanitary conditions. Unless this is done, great losses could be sustained by the migration of infectious organisms from the external surface of the cows teat into the milk.
A variety of cleaning products are currently available using active germicides such as iodine, sodium hypochlorite, chlorhexidine, quarternary ammonium compounds and DDBSA. These products, however, are limited in their effectiveness and have a narrow range of the type of infectious organisms killed.
While the employment of undecylenic acid and other unsaturated acids and their salts for combatting bacteria are shown in the prior art, there is not shown any topical application with non-irritating, skin conditioning emollients to the teats of milk producing animals for cleaning and sanitizing prior to and subsequent to milking to minimize bacterial entrance into the teat canal or the recovered milk. Nor is there shown any feature whereby there is safe use in the event of any introduction of the undecylenic acid composition into the milk.